What Happened?
Shares of alternate site health provider Option Care Health (NASDAQ:OPCH) jumped 3.2% in the afternoon session after Morgan Stanley initiated coverage on the stock with an 'Overweight' rating and a $35 price target. The new rating from analyst Erin Wright signaled a bullish view on the company's future performance. The price target represented a notable premium to where the shares previously traded. The positive outlook was reportedly based on Option Care Health's leading position in the market for home and alternative-site infusion services. This sector was viewed as expanding due to the rising prevalence of chronic diseases and a general shift in healthcare toward lower-cost settings.
Is now the time to buy Option Care Health? Access our full analysis report here.
What Is The Market Telling Us
Option Care Health’s shares are not very volatile and have only had 8 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful, although it might not be something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 24 days ago when the stock dropped 3.1% on the news that investor concerns grew over ongoing contract negotiations for its key drug, Stelara, following a significant price reduction mandated by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The company was in talks with Janssen for the 2026 contracts after the drug's price was cut by 66%. Reports indicated that several issues in the negotiation process remained unresolved. Investors were left facing uncertainty, as the company did not expect to provide an update on the talks until January or February 2026 at the earliest. This lack of clarity on a major source of future profit weighed on the stock, which had already fallen approximately 8% since its second-quarter results, in contrast to a 5% gain for the S&P 500 over the same period.
Option Care Health is up 22.3% since the beginning of the year, but at $27.77 per share, it is still trading 21.1% below its 52-week high of $35.20 from March 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Option Care Health’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $2,017.
Here at StockStory, we certainly understand the potential of thematic investing. Diverse winners from Microsoft (MSFT) to Alphabet (GOOG), Coca-Cola (KO) to Monster Beverage (MNST) could all have been identified as promising growth stories with a megatrend driving the growth. So, in that spirit, we’ve identified a relatively under-the-radar profitable growth stock benefiting from the rise of AI, available to you FREE via this link.